Kathmandu (May 12)—Much to the satisfaction of people, five chief suspects and ministers of the ousted Royal government Kamal Thapa, Rameshnath Pandey, Shris Shumsher Rana, Tanka Dhakal, and Nikshya Shumsher Rana were picked up by police. All five were arrested at home Friday afternoon by plainclothes police officers. They are held in the Police Academy for questioning about their leading roles in illegitimately cracking down on the Mass Movement. Minutes prior to the arrests, they were handed 90-day detention citations of their arrests explaining the cause, and their family members were informed of their location of custody.
  

Upon the request of the Rayamajhi Commission, the cabinet’s emergency meeting has suspended three security chiefs, viz. IGP, IGP (APF), and Chief of Federal Intelligence Bureau, to prevent possible tampering of evidence against suspects who played foul during the Movement II. Their suspension is believed to help the government investigate and take action against all suspects. The list of the suspended includes Additional Inspector Generals of Police Rajendra Bahadur Singh, Rup Sagar Moktan, Rabi Raj Thapa, Krishna Basnet, SSP of Armed Police Force Madhav Thapa, and Durja Kumar Rai.

The fate of Army Chief of Staff Pyar Jung Thapa is left to be decided later by the National Security Council, which is comprised of the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister, and the Army Chief of Staff.

Pyar J. Thapa’s daughter Pragyashree, a doctor and lieutenant in Nepal Army, is getting married to Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad, an ex-Royal man from Baroda, India, this Sunday. Could it be that it was the king’s request to Koirala to spare the Army Chief of Staff until the wedding is over?

Action against these five and others will automatically spare the king, the big fish. However, it will teach future Royalists a lesson that they could only be mere scapegoats and that there will be no king to rescue them when found guilty for crimes. 

Prime Minister G.P. Koirala foresees a “ceremonial role” for the king. Consequently, is he seeking his own dismissal from the party? 

On Wednesday, at a meeting with the SAMFA delegates at his residence in Baluwatar, Koirala reminds that he has never been a republican. On the same occasion, Koirala expresses a view that, if he has his way, he will leave Gyanendra to a ceremonial position. Koirala’s 80 year old, rhetorical question sounded like an infant of a bygone era, “What is the harm if he stays away from administrative activities, like Lord Pashupatinath?” Mr. Koirala, I see problems with your view, especially after the movement: Your view will not solve Maoist problem; it will leave a possibility of political coup from any side forever as a virus; it will keep feudalism forever at the core of Nepali politics; and it will deprive Nepali people from being sovereign (as you believe, people are to be led). Finally, keeping the ceremonial king is bearing annual Royal expenditure, which can be better utilized to develop at least 50 remote villages a year. Read the rest of this entry »

Some leaders of political parties as well as Maoist leaders could be heard claiming in town hall gatherings and interviews of their exclusive role in the achievement of the Movement II. In those 19 days, an honest witness would not recall participants saying that they were there to support a Maoist agenda or a SPA agenda. So far as I can recall Nepali people participated in the movement with the sole aim in mind to forward their own agendas, for the first time in history, defying to be party puppets, so we may want to be more scrupulous not to undermine the achievement that people, their size and vigor, made through the experience of fighting for themselves for the first time in the history. We need to be a little more honest in underlining the sentiment of the people’s chant that reverberated in the three unanimous NAYS described below.  

The 1^st Nay:

The mass of millions of Nepali in the 19-day movement, particularly from April 22-25, said clearly that we no longer could have a ceremony of the monarchy. We tested its all forms in the past: Active through ceremonial status before the conclusion about the monarchy. In 1990, when the then leadership believed that its ceremonial status would not do any harm and that it would work faithfully as a guardian of the system of democracy and that it would not have any foul political ambition, the monarchy, much to our dismay, treaded on people’s aspirations, by participating in the institutionalization of the already prevalent corruption. Instead of curbing the corruption and warning the incumbent government and opposition parties, the monarchy became a chief accomplice of the institution of corruption. Then the monarchy would often seek ways to trade the Royal Stamp (known as Lal Mohar) on a bill with a number of appointments or bargain for “a share,” in which it would present a list of Royalists to be included in the appointment before the approval was “granted.” If you recall the monarchical body in a peon, then you should be able to see how a peon inherits the royal legacy of corruption. If you do not offer the peon “tea-money,” s/he will fake that the rubber stamp is missing, in the same manner the king would hide his Lal Mohar without some bribe. The peon, loyal to the king’s legacy, will not budge until you offer him the “share” of corruption. Institutionalization of corruption means it is there from a peon through the king. Read the rest of this entry »

In his latest statement, Prachanda demands several things, “First dissolve the present parliament, constitution, government, and then form an interim government [let me be the PM] with interim [Maoist] policies right after the first round of talks. With arms in the hands of my Mao Army, I will rig the election to a constituent assembly and outlaw politics for the last time as a payback [we remained too long as an outlaw; now it is others’ turn.”

In the last couple of days, what Prachanda and Baburam have said is the following, “After a work of long 10 years, my army is hot, ready to strike and take over the government. How can I ask my subjects to lay their arms down except to betray myself? No, let us not dream about that. We are fighting a war from several fronts. What we will try to do is submerge into the (Royal) Nepal Army and take over that too or at least get something out of it if my army (PLA) and RNA form a National Army. For free, I am getting my comrades released from various prisons every day; now, I can assign them tasks in the endeavor to allow Mao to take over Nepal.”        

Sudheer Sharma writes in Understanding the Maoist Movement in Nepal, “As soon as the [first] truce was reached with the government in July 2001, the Maoists spent a lot of energy trying to expand their sphere of influence in the capital, in the Terai [plains] and in the eastern region and met with some success in their endeavor.” Read the rest of this entry »

By S. Green

May 2, Kathmandu—Responding to the impatience shown by the public and media, PM Koirala finally came out with a 7-member cabinet, only to be expanded later on to 21 members. In the history of Nepal, for the first time the ministers took their oath of office, without the king and his Raj Parisad, in the Planning Commission hall at Singha Durbar. Thank you, SPA. The portfolios of the ministers are as following: GP Koirala (NC), the PM; KP Sharma Oli (UML), the Deputy PM and Foreign Affairs; Krishna P Sitaula (NC), Home/Interior; Ram Saran Mahat (NC), Finance; Mahanta Thakur (NC), Agriculture; Gopal Man Shrestha (NC-D), Physical Planning & Works; and Prabhu Narayan Chaudhari (United Left Front), Land Reforms & Management. Among the new appointees, Sitaula seems to be more acceptable because he had been in the street more often than others during the Movement. I could be opinionated here.       

Read the rest of this entry »

By S. Green

KATHMANDU, April 30–The Alliance nominated Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala was sworn in by King Gyanendra at Narayanhiti Palace Sunday morning. Is this a bow to the king? Is this an indication that Koirala does not believe in his ability to run the country and that he still requires a ceremonial monarchy as a guardian? The way he had a choice to say “no” to be part of the Raj Parisad, and he wisely said “no” to it to signal its irrelevance and need for abolition, Koirala had an option to say “no” to the palace and take the oath of his office at Singha Durbar instead of Narayanhiti Rajdurbar. I do not think Koirala’s oath at the palace  earned him any credibility point when he had a choice, especially when weighed against his score of 5 out of 5 in the tabulation of the proposal for elections to a constituent assembly and getting it passed today.

Koirala drove into the palace in his private, Chrysler-Jeep looking vehicle and came out in the official PM’s limousine. He did not say a word to the press on the way out as he was already behind the schedule to address the parliament. Within a swift 4-hour discussion, the Parliament reached an unanimous consensus to approve of the proposal to go for CA elections. Thanks. It is funny that the ex-members of the Royalist govt. and RPPs also said “yea” to the proposal.

Another motion that the Parliament passed today was that it announced a ceasefire with the Maoists and asked the new government to make the Maoists reciprocate it by giving up all forms of violence. The same motion also asked the PM to spell out the schedule and details of the CA.

I ask the PM to say definitively, “Maoists, here is the unconditional CA you asked for. We passed it today without any condition attached to it. We fulfilled your demand. Now lay down your arms before you get to participate in the process. If you do not, then people will decide on your fate through the same ballot.”    

Now, let me switch on to a bit of an analytical mood. Even the constituent assembly is not a full recognition of Nepali people’s sovereignty in that people are only given a detour of some Jane or John Doe to write their political future. If people are given only to vote for some individuals and forced to rely on them for major issues of constitution, people’s rights are seriously Read the rest of this entry »

By S. Green 

Undoubtedly, the Parliament revival and the SPA’s election of GP Koirala as their PM are better than a government under Article 35 or 127 or the like. The SPA meeting also has passed that its first agenda in the first parliament session will be the Constituent Assembly, but can the parliament do it? Will the king allow that to happen? Such questions do not quite help me say that people have won for themselves. I am not quite ready to cheer for the Parliament’s revival or Koirala premiership, not because such revival can be legally challenged but because the history will forever point a finger at me for endorsing a continuation of the old, feudal era. I strongly hold the opinion that if I accepted any decision by the king now or in the future, I should be held accountable for what follows from now onward and for agreeing to play a puppet of his legacy, which I have always resisted. 

I am still in the phase of formulating a right response to the king’s act and parties’ welcome. I still do not have a fully clear picture of how SPA can make constituent assembly happen through the parliament. Even when a two-third of the members of parliament passes a bill, the king’s misinterpretation of the constitution still holds the final signature or key, and, in his crooked practice, he can veto any bill from becoming a law and postpone any bill for an indefinite period of time. Read the rest of this entry »

By S. Green

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Breaking News Sunday 23 Apr. (yet to be verified): 

(i) Simulated versions of Referendum are undergoing at some places outside valley (out of the total cast votes, 100% for people against 0% for king). Soon possibly simulations will be immitated across the country . Then, simulations will make way to a real Referendum across the country, only to be verified by people’s appointed election commission.

(ii) I am hearing that some army personnels have already defected, though without arms. Some others could defect with arms soon. Many army men at various places are planning to desert Gyane by breaking ranks with their seniors. In some cases, they have left notes asking for leave. At others, they are not just showing up at work.

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I am trying to draw some conclusion out of what Ranjana Oli, Admin., Suman Pradhan, and I have said in our recent posts and comments. The conclusion seems to be a long, drawn-out, bloody war against Gyane unless one or two or all of the three forces take ethical responsibility and act immidiately to help the people’s war for freedom and democracy against the homicidal, dictator king:  

(1) Supreme Court can void all of Gyane’s past and present orders like it did RCCC and provide an outlet for the constitutional crisis and say loud and clear that Gyane cannot misinterpret the constitution anymore. Read the rest of this entry »

By S. Green

News Update (3:00-5:00 pm, April 22, Sat)– Not just in Kathmandu, the protests rallies saw more people in the streets Saturday afternoon than Friday. Yesterday, the rallies in the capital tried to move in to the city’s core parts and then gradually decided to circle the Ring Road. But today the rallies were bigger, and they broke several of the security barricades and made their ways closer to the Palace, as far as to Tripureshwor in the West Front, to Babar Mahal and Thapathali (close to Singha Durbar) in the East Front, and Thamel in the north, only half a mile away from the king’s Palace.

From within a few blocks from all three sides, the democracy’s fighters were about to storm in the heavily guarded, cursed Palace. The clashes with the security forces took place at all those three fronts. Some 100 injured people were brought to the Model Hospital alone: Dr. Sarita Pandey says some of the injured have bullet wounds, and 12 of them are in critical conditions. At Norvic Hospital, injured people calling for treatment crowded the hallways. Umesh Dhakal, of the Nepalese Red Cross Society, says 243 people are injured, with 39 requiring hospitalization.

Read the rest of this entry »

By S. Green
 
The eyewitnesses tell us that body of our hero-martyr was lying unattended in the battlefield in Kalanki because Gyanendra’s draconic curfew did not let any ambulance of Red Cross or any other humanitarian agencies serve the fatally injured and deceased. The fellow protesters, the champions of democracy, were dispersed from attending the fallen heroes. This one particular hero, whose name is yet to be identified, of democracy clashed against hundreds of police and army for the sole reason that we and the future generations will not have to live the stifling life of slavery under the cold blooded murderer Gyanendra, who has unleashed his ruthlessness to collect tanks of people’s blood for his Dracula crown. His cruelty shot dead three of our family members of democratic movement at the same spot in Kalanki and wounded hundreds more as tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators defied shoot-on-sight curfew orders in Kathmandu.

My family and friends in Kalanki were crying for hours, and with tears in their eyes, they continued fighting all day yesterday. My eighty year old grandfather from Kalanki has joined the battle. If he can believe that we can end Gyanendra’s vicious, homicidal dictatorship, I and the youth must believe we are close to a complete victory. Gyanendra has run amuck in his killing rampage and has lost every right to say anything about Nepal and Nepali. He cannot have any kind of authority over any matters whatsoever, not even as a citizen. He does not have a citizenship in Nepal. Read the rest of this entry »

[This comment from S Green was moved here from King Is Right: Say Yes to Election at our readers’ request]

I have heard some Gyanendra’s supporters are justifying the monarchy here by blaming democracy’s performance of the last 16 years in the country. This is an absurd logic because it does not hold fast to justify one system’s existence (monarchy) simply because the other (democracy) did not do as well as one expected. But even here, you have an erroneous conclusion: if you want to draw a right conclusion, compare what monarchy achieved in the last 250 years vs democracy’s 16 years. Nepal remained always among the top 10 poorest countries in the world during the active monarchy, and what democracy achieved in the last 16 years were GDP, health, education, transportation, communication, media, industries, among many others, all have improved at least ten folds more than in the King’s 250 years: we are almost keeping up with the developed nations in the IT area, despite multiple times the government had to change due to the system being still in its infancy. Read the rest of this entry »

By S. Green

Today—As an immediate reaction to Gyanendra’s address, people from various walks of life marched several miles in the thoroughfares of Kathmandu and elsewhere in Nepal, blowing whistles and chanting “Leave the palace, we will run the country” and “Give us back our rights,” as bystanders and onlookers cheered and clapped, many spontaneously joining the procession. And the most popular chant, “Hang King Gyanendra,” dominated the march in the capital after the SPA, in an effort to tune in with the people, dismissed the monarch’s new pledge of elections as a hollow offer.

Today’s business shut-down was a willing and spontaneous support coming from the entrepreneurs and small merchants for the movement’s demand for Gyanendra’s dismissal. The spontaneous transportation and business shut-down in the valley and elsewhere in the nation must have caused panics within the Palace; or else Gyanendra would not have dispatched a group of police and military loyalists directly from the Palace early today to force open the Thamel business. But once a couple of hoteliers refused to heed, they were mercilessly beaten by the Royalist troops, exemplifying Gyanendra’s democracy. Then, not only the entire Thamelites shut down everything but also vowed to keep it this way until Gyanendra calls it a quit. Owing to the state of confusion among the Royal Cabinet members and within the Palace coterie, the desperate weapons of arrests and shootings continued all day long today in several parts of Kathmandu; mainly Teku and Sanepa saw shootings: Peaceful protesters were not spared from being baton-charged, tear-gassed, and shot indiscriminately by the Royal Army and Police. Baton-wielding King’s men in uniform also beat journalists and critically injured a dozen of them in Kathmandu today. Read the rest of this entry »